


if i wait could i ever forgive myself?

by judypoovey



Series: all i wanted would become everything i ever loved [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anxious Dorks being precious, FWB mutual pining to lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-20
Updated: 2017-01-20
Packaged: 2018-09-18 17:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9394868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/judypoovey/pseuds/judypoovey
Summary: Neither Luke nor Bodhi are really sure where they stand, relationship-wise. Unfortunately, no one around them gives good advice, so they're stuck in relationship limbo while they try and figure one another out.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Bodhi/Luke is The Ship for me right now, and I love it so much. "Diplomat's Son" by Vampire Weekend for the title.

Taking Luke Skywalker home with him had been kind of an accident. They had bumped into each other at school and gotten chatting. And Bodhi was getting distracted by his eyes and his hair and his smile.

The conversation about cars had petered off and Bodhi finally took the dive – something he’d never done before. Not because he had any trouble getting romantic attention, but because he very rarely did the approaching himself. Apparently, he was cute and disarming and it made lots of girls and boys want to ask him out.

But with Luke, he just blurted out: “Hey, do you want to go back to my apartment?”

Luke looked shocked and Bodhi wanted to backtrack, until he grinned. “Sure.”

And then Jyn and Cassian had been there and _ruined it._

So now, Bodhi hadn’t really called Luke back yet, and Luke hadn’t called Bodhi either. Things were awkward. He thought Luke was great, he did. But he didn’t know what Luke wanted from him and he wasn’t sure he knew what he wanted either, so he wasn’t going to try and make it more difficult by pressing him for details.

\--

The next time Bodhi saw Luke was at a party being thrown by this guy that Luke knew, Han Solo. He’d never met Solo, but his reputation as that slightly sketchy guy who bought the under-21s booze and sold weed to everyone on campus proceeded him, so Bodhi was going to this party cautiously.

Everyone was there – Cassian, Jyn, Luke, Leia, Han and his hairier, more taciturn friend Chewbacca, and Lando Calrissian, who had graduated but still hung out around the campus.

“Hey,” he said, hugging Jyn in greeting, then Cassian. He exchanged a look with Luke, but didn’t really say anything, just went to go grab himself a drink. Jyn followed him into the kitchen, bumped him with her hip, her typical tactic for getting his attention gently.

“What’s up, bro?”

“Nothing,” he said, grabbing his beer. “What about you?”

“How are things with Luke?” she asked, cutting to the chase, as she always did.

Bodhi smiled nervously, looking over his shoulder. “Uh…we haven’t talked.”

She gave him a somewhat pitying look. “Why don’t you?” she asked. “You do _like_ him, right?”

“I mean…I do like him, but I’m not sure. I don’t want to make it weird,” he said. “Since we all hang out so much.”

Jyn rolled her eyes. “One of you is going to have to make a move, you know?” she said, not unkindly, but a little blunt. Jyn knew him so well that he couldn’t help but squirm underneath her scrutinizing gaze.

Bodhi just sipped his beer and walked out to rejoin the party, contemplating her words when Luke waved at him, looking up from his conversation with Solo. He steeled himself and walked over.

“Bodhi, have you met Han?” Luke asked.

“Uh, no. Hi, I’m Bodhi Rook,” he said, extending his hand.

Han was a tall guy, even leaning against a table. He shook Bodhi’s hand. “Han Solo. Having fun?” he asked, gesturing to the house. “My place is pretty sweet, right?”

Bodhi looked around. It was okay. “Yeah it’s nice,” he said agreeably, trying not to sound as if he was indulging the ego of his host.

Han was distracted by Chewbacca, who was very very tall, and Chewie’s girlfriend, who was very very small, so Luke turned to Bodhi.

“I’m real sorry,” he said, as he finished his beer and seemed a touch braver than Bodhi was feeling. “I meant to text you but I got busy with class and I felt a little awkward…” he said. He was smiling, though, and Bodhi finished his beer and found he felt a little braver too.

“It’s fine. I didn’t want to come on strong or something,” he said, shrugging. “And I was embarrassed. You know, sharing a room with my sister.”

“When I met Han he lived in his car, there are much worse places to sleep than in the same room as Jyn,” he said, both of them kind of laughing off their initial unease. They didn’t only talk to each other through the night, but they kept coming back to one another, as if they were trapped in an orbit.

“I have a room upstairs,” Luke said by the end of the night, when Jyn was curiously eyeing him, clearly ready to leave but not willing to abandon her brother.

That was all that needed to be said, Bodhi waved off his sister and when everyone else was too pleasantly drunk to notice, they made their escape up to Luke’s room. Like the rest of the house, it was sizeable, but in a state of disrepair.

“Han got a really good deal on the place,” Luke said, suddenly a little awkward. “A fixer-upper. Only, you know, no one has done any fix-upping.”

“I could help you,” Bodhi said, choosing a safe action; taking off his shoes. “Baze taught me how to fix stuff.”

“I’d like that.”

Then Luke kissed him, and he smelled like the beach, and it was the best thing that had ever happened.

And that was that.

\--

It turns out, there, there was much more than needed to be said that night, because Bodhi woke up pleasantly warm, kind of jittering with the post-getting-laid glow, but completely unsure of how to proceed. Wait for Luke to wake up? Sneak out? Was this a one (and a half, he guessed) night thing or should they date? He didn’t know. Did he want a boyfriend his first year of college? Did _Luke_?

Bodhi found the questions made him too uncomfortable, so he very quietly got up and found where his clothes had been strewn about. He wasn’t going to leave, he just wasn’t going to presume that he was welcome to keep taking up space in Luke’s room.

The rustling about must have stirred Luke, because he rolled over and was suddenly looking right at Bodhi, smiling sleepily. “Leaving?”

“Uh…want to get breakfast?”

So thirty minutes later, they were sitting in a little diner, eating eggs, both of them happy but also distinctly uncomfortable. Bodhi was not inexperienced, but most of his experience had been in the realm of high school, where if you so much as held hands you were eternally bound to each other – or at least, had to act like you were – in university, he knew casual was popular.

Bodhi didn’t think he’d mind dating Luke Skywalker at all, but he would take whatever he could get.

“You know,” Luke finally said after the waitress walked off again. “We could…keep it light.”

That hung between them for a long few minutes. Bodhi tried to figure out if this suggestion was for his sake or Luke’s. The safest option, he found, was to simply nod.

“Light is fine.”

Luke smiled.

Bodhi smiled.

The waitress brought two huge stack of waffles, and they ate in easy silence.

\--

Luke Skywalker was a mess.

Lying face down on his bed, he tried to figure out how he had screwed up so royally. He couldn’t be casual with Bodhi Rook when he _liked him so much._ Why hadn’t he just been honest? He had been so afraid of an outright “no” that he had just offered the slightest thing, the bare minimum, thinking maybe Bodhi – a little older, much more worldly and experienced – would prefer that. And he’d said yes!

He was just a dumb kid, thinking maybe that Bodhi _liked_ him.

Not that he thought Bodhi _didn’t_ , but his mind had been spinning crazy romantic fantasies ever since they’d met, and he’d been so happy when Bodhi had invited him back to his place. Now he knew that it was going to be better if they were just friends. Crap. He should have just asked and accepted the no. But sometimes, he just got so anxious he couldn’t form the words.

“Luke, are you all right, kid?” Han asked from the door. “Maz says you’ve been lying face down for like an hour. Can you breathe?”

“I’m fine!” he said, his voice muffled by the pillow.

“You sound fine,” Han replied, sarcastic.

He finally rolled over and met his friend’s scrutinizing gaze. “I am fine!”

“Did your breakfast date with Rook not go well? Should I go give him a piece of my mind?” Han demanded.

Luke groaned. “It went fine. I just…I panicked. And I asked if he just wanted to be…casual. And he did!”

“Aw, kid.” Han reached over to awkwardly pat him on the shoulder. “It’s not a big deal.”

“No?”

“Of course not. Just do the casual thing until he’s in love with you and _has_ to go out with you,” he said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world.

To Luke it made no sense at all. If he didn’t want to date, he doubted that more stuff they’d already done was going to change his mind. But Han had dated loads of people and Luke hadn’t, so maybe he should trust him.

“Okay, I guess I can try that.”

\--

“So I guess we’re friends with benefits,” he told Cassian.

Cassian looked a little confused. “Is that…what you want?” He didn’t sound like he thought this was what Bodhi wanted, but Cassian liked to at least pretend he stayed in his lane when it came to his friends’ lives.

“I mean. I want something, and if he doesn’t want to date then I’ll take what I can get,” he said.

“That’s just going to lead to a lot of hurt feelings, you know, in the long run.”

Bodhi sighed. “I know. I just…ugh. I don’t know, Cassian. You’re good at dating, what do you do?”

Cassian shrugged. “I’m not that good at it, I honestly couldn’t tell you,” he said. “Me and Jyn just kinda fell together. I just assumed that was how it worked.”

Bodhi hoped that it wasn’t how it worked, because so far nothing had felt natural or easy, and yet his heart was still all knotted up and backwards. He felt like a total idiot. “Ugh.”

“I’m sorry,” he said, patting Bodhi sympathetically before turning back and turning the TV on. “Let’s play some games and try to forget about it,” he suggested.

“Sounds good.”

\--

Luke texted first, after his shift at Obi-Wan’s diner had ended, hoping to meet up. He had worked a long day. He had been resistant to the idea of working for family at first, but they needed a dishwasher and Luke kind of needed some money, so he gave in and took the job.

‘I’ll pick you up,’ he messaged Bodhi after a positive response.

When he pulled up to their apartment building, Bodhi was already waiting outside. “I figured we’d go to your place,” he said in a slightly halting voice when he noticed that Luke didn’t look too sure.

“Oh, of course,” he said, smiling. They hadn’t talked much since their breakfast together, so Luke was still feeling unsure. “I don’t think Han’s home tonight so…”

Bodhi grinned, and Luke felt better about the whole late-night hookup thing.

\--

He had crashed there again and now he was almost late for class. Bodhi scrambled to get dressed, Luke still sleeping peacefully. Once he had gotten his stuff, he turned and looked at his sleeping…friend. Fuck-buddy?

He was overcome with the urge, and walked over to kiss him on the forehead just one last time before he caught the bus. Luke smiled in his sleep and curled tighter into his blanket cocoon, because this lucky bastard didn’t have class on Thursday.

Bodhi ran into Han at the door, balking at the taller man’s sleepy presence.

“I gotta go,” he said before Han could speak.

“Need a ride?” he asked, glancing out of the window to confirm that Bodhi hadn’t driven. “Car’s faster than the bus, I promise you that.”

Bodhi assessed the situation. “Sure,” he said, against his better judgment. When he got into Han’s “car” (if you could call it that) he regretted going against his gut. The car was a dilapidated wreck that roared and gargled as Han turned it on, pulled out of the driveway so roughly smoke billowed around them.

“So, what are your intentions with my friend?” Han asked.

“Intentions?” he sputtered. “We’re just…I mean…it’s a good time…”

Han grinned. “Luke is a good kid. You’d better treat him like it,” he said.

Sighing in relief, Bodhi stared out the window as the city flew by, Han clearly disregarding the speed limit to get onto campus faster. “I know…I know that. Luke’s great. I’d never…” He couldn’t say much – they were just friends right? “I just want him to be happy.”

“Me too. But if you step one toe out of line, I’ll tell Leia.”

Bodhi glared. “You wouldn’t.”

“Do you want to test me?” he asked.

Bodhi considered this. Leia was small, yes, but much like Jyn, size was no real indicator of power. She could probably kick his ass. Not to mention her father was an important member of the community… The extended Skywalker-Organa clan was simply not to be trifled with, and Bodhi, a barely-reformed delinquent, was not in any shape acceptable for Luke.

“No. This is my building,” he said. “Thanks for the ride.”

“Any time, kid. Any friend of Luke’s is a friend of mine,” he said, speeding off once Bodhi had gotten out of the screaming metal deathtrap he called a car.

\--

“He wants me to be happy?” Luke repeated back disbelieving as Han reported on his earlier conversation with Bodhi.

Han had, of course, immediately ratted Bodhi out, because his loyalty was to Luke.

“What does that mean?” he asked, frustrated.

Han shrugged, leaning back in his chair and turning back to their video game race. Luke was winning, because he was some kind of video game prodigy. “I think he likes you, kid. I mean, judging by how you two sounded when I got home…”

Luke frowned.

The door to the house flew open, and Maz Kanata walked in. Maz was a larger than life figure, and a good friend, but she did have a flare for dramatics, and no patience for any of the men in the house. “Luke!”

“Maz?” he asked, putting down his controller as she walked over and poked him in the chest.

Maz had been dating Chewie for as long as anyone could remember. How had he not thought to ask her for advice? She was a bartender, she knew everything. “Are you stringing some nice boy who likes you along?”

“What? No! I…he said he wanted to be casual! I was just trying to be mature!” he yelped.

“You need to stop being mature are start being yourself before everyone ends up miserable! Do you want to be casual?”

“No,” he said, feeling a little miserable as he did.

“Then tell him! Being mature means being honest, not having casual sex with nice boys who want to date you!”

With that, Maz disappeared from the room to go get ready for work, but Luke didn’t need to hear more anyway. He flopped back dramatically, staring up at the ceiling and trying to figure out what he should do. Maz was right, of course. She usually was. But he didn’t want to ruin things.

\--

At that very same moment, a different but equally head strong short woman was approaching Bodhi Rook with menace in her dark eyes. He took a step back when she and Jyn approached him, both looking very grim indeed.

“What did I do?” he asked.

“Are you sleeping with my brother?” Leia asked, her hands on her hips. Jyn’s arms were crossed, a step behind Leia and clearly there for backup.

“Uh…uh…”

“Han talks a lot, just get on with it,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah…is that…I mean…you’re not mad right? You kind of scare me. So don’t be mad?” he asked, looking over her to his sister, who was very much not going to be helping him out of this nightmare. Some sister she was.

“Luke is an adult,” she said, her gaze softening just a little. “But if you do anything to him I’ll make you regret it,” she cautioned. “Why aren’t you two dating?”

“I mean…he said we should keep it casual so I just thought…you know…”

Leia laughed, looking over at Jyn and shaking her head. Clearly they had both grown frustrated with their brothers. “Luke has never been casual about anything in his life. You need to ask him out properly.”

Bodhi dreaded the idea. The possibility of rejection sent his heartbeat into a frenzy. “Okay. Yeah.”

\--

A few days passed and neither reached out, until one Saturday when Luke called.

“I’m outside your apartment. Come out?” he asked when Bodhi answered.

Bodhi slipped on his shoes and walked outside, Luke standing outside of the building with his hands stuffed into his jean jacket pockets. They were quiet for a second, both awkwardly searching for words.

“I don’t want to be casual,” they said in unison.

“What?” they said. “You first.”

Both took a deep breath, and entirely by accident, spoke together again. “I think we should date.”

They caught it that time, Luke starting to laugh and Bodhi doing the same. Bodhi caught him by the shoulder as they both doubled over, almost out of breath for laughing. After the days and days of agonizing and insecurity, they were finally on the same page. Only to find out, they had been on the same page the whole time, just too afraid to actually open the book.

Luke caught his breath just long enough to lean in and try to kiss Bodhi, but they both dissolved into giggles again.

“Boyfriends?” Bodhi managed to choke out.

“Please.”

“Jyn’s not home, we can use my room.”


End file.
